Edited by Susanna Johnston 1997 First American Edition Hardcover in Like New Condition Parties are the ultimate social crucible and playground, an opportunity for the gregarious to shine, the wallflower to shrink, the arriviste to jockey for position, and the gate crasher to finesse his unexpected arrival. This is your invitation. This fabulously, entertaining collection gathers for the first time the wildest, the most illuminating, the most entertaining, -simply the best writing- about the this most social of rituals from over 200 writers, including Truman, Capote, Martin Amis, Daphne DeMaurier, Horace, Noel Coward, Edith Wharton, Tom Wolfe, Shakespeare, Colette, Vladimir Nobokov, Muriel Spark, James Thurber, Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the Bible, Dorothy Parker, Dominic Dunne, and many more.